Saying No to Prom Wedding: Prioritizing Food

I got this hilarious message from my friend, Alissa, today. She was to be married next week, but, as you'll read, she had to stop the prom wedding train. PROM WEDDING!

It reminded me of why we were so adament about having only 80 people. We want to serve good food and wine in a somewhat intimate setting where we can talk with guests. We received the last of our rsvp's today, and thankfully, it's right at our estimate. We almost had the issue of crashing and burning into a giant prom wedding circus when G's dad tried to invite all the cousins. Thankfully, that train was stopped and we won't have to serve banquet hall chicken and salmon after all.

We're not alone in wanting this. Alissa, puts it more bluntly!

"Congrats!!! I know the big day is coming soon. I know you will look fabulous--as always, but I hope you stop to take a breath and have a wonderful time. I'm sure, with you at the helm, everything will be GOOOOORGEOUS.

We actually pushed the wedding back to June 6, because, well, we changed everything in February because it was becoming a beast/monster called "The Worst". Too many people. Not what we wanted--and slowly careening into prom wedding. And I hated every minute of planning. So we cut the guest list down to the nearest and dearest of 30 heads and changed the setting from my 'rents country club in Long Island to a little Inn in Staunton, VA. More dinner party than anything else. Less stress, less fuss, more us. And more fun with the details. All local food, wine, flowers, etc. So, I went from hating the wedding to loving it. Thankfully. But either way--I'm glad there is a goddamn honeymoon en route. Where are you going?!

xoxoxoxoxo,

Your fellow bride in waiting"

Hers will definitely be a stylish, tasteful and tasty affair...

Menu Tasting: Old Fashion Fare (with Tweaks)

From our rsvp card: Lamb, trout, or veggie

We're having our wedding ceremony and reception at the Homestead in Virginia. Other than being our favorite weekend retreat from the city, one major reason we love the Homestead is the food. They have a 54-page banquet menu of everything you could ever imagine from nouveau high-style to country cook-out. But ultimately, we wanted old-fashioned, simple fare.

We definitely enjoy experimental cuisine (a la Blumenthal, Keller, Dufresne); however, there is just something wonderful about unembellished food. And the Homestead (and the small establishments in the area) does country-mountain classics such as duck, lamb, venison and trout with great fidelity towards local and seasonal ingredients. It is a traditional style that certainly suits our vintage-inspired wedding.

So it was a happy (and gluttonous) weekend in February when we went down to the Homestead for tastings of BOTH our rehearsal dinner and our reception menus...within an hour of each other!!

The Rehearsal Dinner

The rehearsal dinner will be hosted by G's parents and take place at Garth Newel, a chamber music venue that is situated on the grounds of an old farm. It's a beautiful and rustic venue with a matching menu!

- Pork Tenderloin Diane (Chef Randy Wyche also added some Medeira to the classic sauce).

- Pan roasted chicken* with goat cheese and sweet Vidalia onion relish. Left on the bone with crispy skin, the meat was surprisingly flavorful and succulent. The earthiness of the relish cut the richness of the goat cheese.

- Wedding party stalwart, filet of beef. Served with a Shiraz demiglace and mushrooms. Chef indicated that in the Spring, there's a man who hunts chanterelles and brings them straight to the farm...and they'd be used instead of these (store-bought) porcinis.

- Poached salmon with beurre blanc and shrimp (to be replaced by crab when they come in season this Spring). Basic string beans adorned with salty Virginia peanuts. Surprisingly tasty. I like the local ingredients.

And the verdict...

Chicken and beef! Talk about traditional! However, I must say that the flavors on these very basic dishes were bursting...and I will probably even have the CHICKEN!!!

The Reception

After our tasting at Garth Newel, we went back to the Homestead to meet with our coordinator and Chef Todd to taste the reception dinner. (Probably not the most brilliant decision.) We knew we wanted a local menu of rustic mountain trout and Spring lamb. We just had to decide on the details of our cocktail-hour goodies along with the five course gut-buster.

Chef Todd and O'neill, our server.

Cocktail hour: Very light old-school hors d'oeuvres.

Thai curry shrimp. Unfortunately subtle on the curry, but oh well. (We have guests who may not know where Thailand is on the map anyway. Salmon mousse boats with caviar; goat cheese-stuffed artichoke hearts; and watercress sandwiches. Mini roast beef and mini Virginia ham and biscuit sandwiches. We'll nix the ham and the watercress sandwiches--to afternoon tea-like.

Dinner:

First course: I wanted to include a subtle nod to the heritage! I wasn't sure if he'd go for it, but I SENT A RECIPE TO THE CHEF to prepare a crab and asparagus soup to replace the consomme that was on our menu option. He was gracious and really tried hard...and hit a home run with it!

The second course on the menu: Basil seared sea scallops, wasabi and roasted red pepper sauce Jasmine rice in seaweed.

Palette cleanser: Champagne sorbet.

Fourth (Main) Course:

The herb and mustard crusted rack of lamb needed no tweaking. Whatever seasonal accompaniment Chef comes up with in May will be just fine (lamb will overshadow any side, anyway). For our alternative choice, we chose fresh Allegheny mountain rainbow trout. We tried two preparations: herb grilled (yawn) or pan seared with grapes, almonds and brown butter vinaigrette. We chose the latter.

But we liked the accompaniments of the former (grilled artichoke hearts)--but I also requested replacements of Jasmine rice (instead of the fingerlings) and fiddleheads (instead of the greens). He said he'd try his best--as he loves them, too. I'm thinking he either loves or hates me at this point (probably hates).

A dessert (see below) of strawberries Romanov usually follows the main course. But we like salad or cheese after dinner (I know, we're weird). Mr. R and I tussled over which to have, but ultimately chose this wonderful watercress and beet (w/ goat cheese, candied walnuts, and sweet basil dressing).
So we're nixing the dessert on the menu and will only have the cake. But since we don't looove cake, I'm seriously considering a little something like profiteroles for just the two of us. Is that terrible?

Dessert: Strawberries Romanov in chocolate shell with lady fingers (nixed). Three cakes baked for our tasting (lemon, dark chocolate-raspberry, vanilla-raspberry). We chose the first two flavors.

After all the WONDERFUL food that day, we didn't eat dinner. In fact I had to wear stretch pants for the drive home the next day. Terrible, indeed!

*G and I don't eat chicken (I know. Once again: weird.)

Let them eat...croquembouche?

G and I don't really like cake. But how can a vaguely Marie Antoinette themed wedding be without cake? We love little cake-like things like macarons (that I've talked about way too much already), but we want something different.


Croquembouche (translation: crunch in the mouth) is basically a cone-shaped pile of profiteroles. Wouldn't it be so lovely to eat this?

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We thought it over and went back and forth for about ten minutes, and decided the pile would be difficult to cut into and negotiate. We also realized secretly that we're not that cool or sophisticated (and more traditional than we thought). So we're going with cake. I found this one on theknot.com and the decoration just happens to look quite similar to the embroidery on my dress! I really like it (except for the monogram). The color is about right, too.

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Then I thought, maybe this Wedgwood-looking cake would better reflect the Laduree-inspired design that I have going on in my invitations (more on those later).

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And this weekend, when we went down to the Homestead for our menu tasting, I showed the chef the two cake images and let him decide. My only stipulations were that he choose the cake that he thinks is best, and that it should be close, not a parody or general approximation of the cake in the image. He said the Wedgwood cake looked too much like wood moulding and the negative space wasn't very nice. (Note to self: Chef doesn't like home-improvement elements on cakes.) So we're going with the aqua lace cake! Ironically, he told me to send him a paint chip so he can get the color exactly right. For the inside we chose two flavors: lemon (at the bottom for non-messy cutting)) and dark chocolate-raspberry (for the top two tiers).

That was easy.